However, the bass clarinet also shares the higher clarinets' wood-rich glow and can provide a satisfyingly comforting sound. Like a saxophone (which was influenced by the earlier bass clarinet), the instrument has a metal upturned bell and a curved metal crook to which the mouthpiece is attached, but it retains the maple-wood body. Another adjective that gets applied to the bass clarinet is goblin-esque - for its startlingly subtle dynamic control.

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Did you know?

One of the earliest solo passages for bass clarinet occurs in Mercadante's 1834 opera Emma d'Antiochia,

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The contrabass clarinet descended from a weird, short-lived late 18th-century instrument called the batyphone into another weird instrument that might be likened to the deep sea monster of the orchestra.